


Righting Wrongs

by Queer_Lil_Fuqer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29293242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queer_Lil_Fuqer/pseuds/Queer_Lil_Fuqer
Summary: What should've happened s2e5 (Finn’s massacre)Thanks to Nezstaffani for beta work ❤️
Kudos: 4





	Righting Wrongs

Murphy fidgeted.

He didn’t often find himself feeling this unsettled, but Finn had been acting increasingly… unhinged.

“I told you, we don't have your people.”

“Stop talking,” he growled at the grounder with a tattoo swirling around his eye, the one who had also identified himself as the leader. Nick or something. Raising his voice to carry to his companion frantically tearing through the buildings, he shouted without turning, “Find something?” He knew he wouldn’t, but that didn’t quell his apprehension at the silence that followed. “Finn! Finn, answer me! Are you all right?”

A grounder capitalized on his split attention and attempted an attack.

He pulled the butt of the gun up to his shoulder and shouted them back to their knees, their compliance veiled with barely contained fury- he already had one variable he couldn’t control, he wasn’t going to add more if he could help it. This was getting out of hand, even for his careless taste. The rest of the hundred weren’t here, but the other boy needed to come to that realization on his own or they’d never leave. “Finn! Slow down.”

At last, he came back into sight, one hand clutching his gun and the other waving distinctly Ark jackets. “What have you done with them?!”

Murphy’s heart jumped to his throat. He knew that meant nothing, but he also knew this would make things worse. “Hey Finn. Finn! Come on.”

Unsurprisingly, he was ignored. “Their clothes are here! They were here!”

“Finn!”

He could see the situation devolving exponentially.

“You killed them!” Grief cracked through Finn’s anger.

The same grounder from before spoke up. “Your friends were not here,” he repeated with waning patience. “I saw one, Oktevia. She was alone.”

Please let this man convince him, he prayed, but to whom he didn’t know. Disregarding rules and societal systems were his bread and butter, but drawing unnecessary attention was not, especially as it seemed a fruitless venture. “These people are scavengers, Finn. They could've just found that stuff.” No response. “Hey, Finn, stop! Stop! Look at me!”

Finally acknowledging him, the other boy shrugged off the hand he had placed on his shoulder and turned with a wild look.

“Get off me!”

Pulling his hand back, he held it up placatingly. “Finn, don't do this. Let’s just walk out of here while we still can, ok?” It looked like maybe, just maybe, his resolve was weakening. “Finn. Please.” He made his voice as soothing as he knew how. “Look, just because their clothes are here doesn't mean anything.”

“He told us our friends were here.” His voice broke again, with confusion and desperation. “Why would he do that?”

“The guy with one eye?” The last memory of the man was superimposed on the back of his eyelids - shot execution style, still bound to a chair, left to rot in a bunker. He tried to scoff to create a more casual air. “Maybe because you had a gun to his head, Finn.”

“The man with one eye?” The grounder leader interjected. “You saw Delano. A snake. A thief. He and his men were cast out. You are his revenge.”

“It makes sense, Finn.” An anxious band around his chest loosened. “Ok, we need to go.” He was definitely wavering. “Now. Now! We need to go!”

Maybe he would have. He looked ready to give up, move on. But one of the grounders chose that moment to leap over the fence and charge them.

Murphy was used to violence. At nine years old, he watched his father float for stealing medicine for him - medicine that turned out to be useless - then spent the next four and a half years enduring his mother’s misdirected belligerence, right up until she drank herself to death. The guards had never held back after his father’s death either, and after his mother’s, it came to a head when they gave him a secret he would take to his grave. A group of them held him down and the same man to arrest his father spat hatred at him as he took the last of his innocence. So Murphy took his life, burned him alive as he slept. It was an explanation but not an excuse for why he continued to lash out at his fellow prisoners in the Skybox, trapped in close quarters not only with them, but also the guards. All that before being sent down. There was a novelty to the inherent violence of survival on the ground, but he took it in stride as more was revealed each day. He knew the perils of the struggle to stay alive, and he was prepared to do a great many things to save his skin.

What unfolded in front of him was a compaction of this newer brutality that challenged his self-preservation.

It happened in slow motion and all at once. He watched Finn shoot the grounder several times in the chest, outraged shouts from the villagers drowned out by the roaring of blood in his ears, while the shooter barely paused to shift his hold to continue as the others in the pen began moving.

Murphy didn’t even process the single overlapping gunshot until he registered the cloud of red mist and stilling body. Luckily, Finn’s finger slipped off the trigger as the gun fell out of his hands, and Murphy found himself running to him, his gun joining the discarded one in the mud, despite all instincts screaming at him to slink away.

Shaky hands turned the Spacewalker on his back, and some corner of his mind appreciated the good shot - straight through the temple, a minimal amount of blood pooling. Brown eyes with returning clarity stared into and through his soul in their final moments as the sheen of life crept from them, his face relaxing into his final peace.

“F-f-f-fuck... so… rry…”

Finn’s last words were little more than a wheeze, quickly chased by his death rattle.

Murphy didn’t acknowledge the grounders as they sped to care for their fallen comrades, or used poles to cautiously nudge the guns towards the tree line. Even when Clarke and the Blake siblings burst from the woods, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Finn.

The two had never been friends. At first, Murphy had despised the self righteous air he had wrapped himself in, as though he was smarter and better than the rest of them, as though the noble ideals and arbitrary categories of right and wrong he held to granted some moral high ground. He had supported Murphy’s banishment, which had led to his torture, but he had also been one of the few that didn’t openly scorn him once he made it back to the Dropship, despite the sickness he unknowingly carried.

Campaigning for peace with the grounders had started with Finn, too, and although Murphy wasn’t their biggest proponent, he had realized they were no match, even with the Ark, and when you can’t beat them, join them. He had followed him (and Bellamy) from Camp Jaha as one of the few people he didn’t actively hate, and as someone willing to give him a gun and leave the cursed tin can. If he had paid closer attention, hadn’t been so self-absorbed and wallowing in his own pity, he would’ve realized how bad it was before Delano. Talked him through shit earlier. Prevented this. He wasn’t squeamish when it came to killing - had followed through on a couple murders himself- he just couldn’t condone it when the victim was acting in self-defense and the perpetrator was high off a power trip.

Obviously he had to take him out of the equation - for totally selfish reasons, of course. So he wasn’t complicit in such a public war crime. After all, he had a reputation as a backstabbing weasel to uphold.

Clarke was the first to approach, the Blakes lagging behind- Bellamy gripping his gun close to his chest as he guarded the blonde’s back and Octavia sheathing her sword as she talked with the grounders.

A lightly callused hand rested on top of his and Murphy needed no further prompting.

“We were looking for you.” His voice was devoid of emotion. There were too many for him to settle on any one at the moment. “He thought you were here. I couldn’t get him to leave- or, maybe I could have, but he was, um, unpredictable? Impulsive?” The wet laugh that forced its way out was the sole indication of what he was feeling. “This was the only way I could stop him.”

He sat back and scrubbed his hands across his face, working away the budding sentiment with the grime.

Raven was going to hate him. Whatever fucked up version of a friendship they had laid groundwork for would be smashed, and he’d be back to having no one but himself. He was fine on his own, but it was… nice to have someone else, at least once in a while.

Their unofficial leader remained sitting quietly with her head bowed for a while longer, so he looked back up and around. The wounded were being separated from the dead and too far gone and moved to a nearby house, Bellamy had lowered the barrel of his gun, safety on, but hadn’t shouldered it, and Octavia was jogging their way. She looked physically pained as she gently called Clarke’s name.

Misty blue eyes dragged themselves away from the cooling corpse.

“Nyko said they could use another healer.” She tried to clear her throat. “He said to specify “for the living who can still be saved.”” It seemed Clarke would interrupt, but she barreled on. “He also said to, uh, that if you help, he’ll consider it recompense and petition the Commander to not pursue it further.” Shifting awkwardly, she finished, “Justice has been served.”

Murphy snorted in derision as they all turned their scowls on him.

“Fine,” Clarke snapped, and stormed off with the younger Blake.

When Bellamy didn’t follow as expected, Murphy confronted his glare with a tired sneer. “And what do you want?”

“How could you?!” He shouted, angling his gun and flicking the safety back off. “You shot Finn! He was one of us and you shot him!”

“Yeah and look what he did!” He returned the shouting, springing to his feet. “I count at least five dead, and there were maybe five warriors in the entire village!” He gestured at bodies being carried to the edge of the houses. “Look,” and he waited until he did, “they aren’t battle hardened soldiers, they are farmers and crafters, forced out of their homes in the middle of the night and rounded up like animals, and I helped with that! You know what, Bell Boy? So did you! This is “whatever the hell we want.” And honestly? So was me shooting him. Is this what you envisioned? Are you prepared to be responsible for this?” He stepped in closer, and Bellamy twisted his lip further but he didn’t interrupt. “The ground was our precious “fresh start” and now you’re jumping to justify straight up murdering innocent people? You’re no better than the council, thinking you know which lives are expenda-“

Pain exploded from his jaw, and he belatedly chastised himself for not preparing for it, tasting blood. He stumbled back and threw up his arms to shield his face, should Bellamy choose to further batter him with his gun.

When no more blows came, he lowered his arms, and to his surprise a grounder with one scarred and glassy eye had disarmed his assailant and pinned him in the mud.

“You Skai brats are lucky this Murfi was here to keep that spich fraga in check, and that he put him down when he did.” He was all but spitting as he gave Bellamy’s head an extra shove, even as he got up. “I see now you are but a child, so I’ll treat you like one, just this once.” As he glowered at the man struggling to get up, a woman joined in. She lifted Bellamy by the back of his shirt and backhanded him.

“You come to our lands, burn a village, 300 of our warriors.” Her English was not as smooth but her voice was filled with at least as much rage. “One of your men sees the violence in his own eyes and frees us of it and now you hate killing. Are seven of us less than one of you?” She shook him. Hard. “Are hundreds?”

“Farmers and crafters, huh?” Bellamy grunted with a sidelong glance at Murphy.

Ignoring him, the woman tossed him on his ass, as easily as an empty shirt, and as he scrambled away, she turned to the other Skaikru. She didn’t smile, but her face did relax somewhat. “Murfi, yes?” She jerked her chin when he nodded. “Your own reject you for this,” she gestured broadly then to herself and the first grounder. “I am Ahala and my bonded, Ret. We will house you while Heda judges. You will earn it. I create from animal skin, Ret creates foods, and we two are honta for our peoples. You will help us…” she was clearly searching for a word, “recover. As we heal from this.” She pointed to a house with a weathered and faintly blue door. “You sleep with us.”

Watching them both stalk off without another word, Murphy wanted to snark, wanted to tell them he’d decide what happens to him next, say he could take care of himself, throw it back in their faces, but he knew it’d all be wrong, and honestly? He was tired- of running, of being alone, of being scorned.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe this was his fresh start. Maybe he could belong again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Before anyone asks, I don't specify their ages or ✨𝓿𝓲𝓫𝓮𝓼✨ so Ahala & Ret could be Murphy's new adoptive parents or they could be throuple goals.  
> Theoretically I think this story line has potential, I'm just already struggling with burn out and writer's block on my main (multichapter) fic, and having a hell of a time getting back into it. If anyone is inspired by this, and I that was maybe lowkey my hope with this, I would love love love to read what y'all got. Maybe I come back to this in the future, but equally likely not, so please feel free, if you are so inclined 🥺💖  
> Anyway! I already know I love all of you because you took the time to read this ❤️❤️❤️❤️
> 
> Edit: “spich fraga” roughly translates to “damn murderer”


End file.
